Arizona State won a 70-68 thriller over Arizona tonight, moving to within a half game of Washington for the Pac-10 lead.

The result means that the winner of the ASU-UW game at Hec Ed on Thursday will be alone at the top of the Pac-10 race, with either UW moving a game and a half ahead of the Sun Devils or ASU moving a half game ahead of the Huskies.

The Huskies admitted that they were watching -- and whooping and hollering -- as the Washington State upset UCLA yesterday. So it's more than likely that they'll be tuned in again at 7 tonight when Arizona visits Arizona State.

The Sun Devils are the only Pac-10 team even with the Huskies in the loss column, so it seems clear that the Huskies -- and their fans -- should be pulling for the Wildcats tonight. (Regardless, the Huskies can take care of their own business when they host ASU on Thursday.)

Meanwhile, with the Pac-10 lead and only three home conference games remaing -- ASU, Arizona on Saturday and WSU the following Saturday -- even these one-game-at-a-time Huskies are willing to talk championship.

Coach Lorenzo Romar: "We’ve been (talking about) it as the time approaches more and more frequently. It’s kinda like when the big concert is coming: Two moths away there’s one commercial. By the time it’s a week away there’s a whole bunch of them."

Quincy Pondexter: "It’s incredibly motivating. To have the Pac-10 championship three games away, it's incredible from whre we started the season off, losing to Portland and how we played the last two seasons. We’ve come such a far ways and I’m just roud of our team and the staff for helping us get this far. These last three games aren’t going to be easy at all. Arizona and Arizona State are tremendous teams; as well as Washington State, which just beat UCLA. It’s going to be a battle each and every last game."

Justin Dentmon: "We knew Cal lost and we saw the UCLA game. ... The Cal game was surprising. It’s like, what more can we ask for? We’ve got three home games, so it’s like all in our favor right now.

More Dentmon: (After the game Jon Brockman) was just saying, 'Man, we finished it out. Now it’s time to enjoy home.' This is our last road win in a conference game. We’ve got to enjoy it."

And more Dentmon: "During the game (Romar) was like 'Championship, championship.' People were looking kind of tired, he said, 'Anybody need to come out?'"

There was some sort of incident -- perhaps two -- involving USC players after the loss to UW yesterday. It/they happened on the court and in the USC locker room while I was interviewing Huskies in another part of Galen Center.

However, we heard some rumblings about it yesterday, but I heard enough conflicting stuff where I didn't include anything my story -- plus, there was no shortage of UW things to write about.

However, the LA papers featured the incidents in thier stories today ... alhough even here this is considerably different emphasis in the LA stories.

Here's the take from the LA Times. And from the LA Daily News.

(By the way, the Times story has an incorrect quote attributed to Lorenzo Romar.) The quotes -- which was incorrectly transcribed by the USC sports information staff -- has Romar saying he was "astounded" that his team won. Romar actually said said he was "ecstatic" ... which is a different thing.)